Americo of Boombox Cartel Shares the Origin of the Duo in iEDM Exclusive Interview

Lindsey Moriyama | July 08, 2017

EDC was a time for ravers and producers to unite together under (a very hot) electric sky. Between the three days of performing, new music and surprise guests, the artists had a lot on their plates.

Luckily, some of these talented producers had some time to chat with us about their experiences at EDC and EDM in general. And iEDM had the opportunity to sit down and talk to Americo Garcia, one-half of the bass-heavy duo that the world knows as Boombox Cartel.

iEDM: How did you come up with the name of Boombox Cartel? It's very eclectic, it's unique.

Americo: Yeah, well when Jorge and I were in music school and we were kinda doing our own thing before we actually did anything together. And we had worked on a song, it was a simple bootleg and we were like "yo let's put it up on someone's SoundCloud, yours or mine? Let's just open a new one. And it was just like a group of friends and we were all like "what should we name it?" and they were like "well you guys are Mexicans." And we were like "Oh, wow." and they were like "yeah with the cartels and everything." And this was back in 2012 so it was really violent, but one of our peace and love friends was like "no, the good kind of cartel. Like music, boombox. Boombox Cartel." And we looked up every username and we were like "Boombox Cartel is available, it sounds amazing, we're gonna use it." So yeah, it was like a group of friends just throwing out ideas.

iEDM: Nice. How did you get started producing music? You said the two of you were in music school together. What got you interested in electronic music?

Americo: Well electronic music. I was like playing drums and piano before that, I was in a bunch of rock bands. And then I kinda got into EDM during Glitch Mob during that hybrid Passion Pit, Indie music, rock music, with a little bit of electronic kind of stuff. And then I got into the whole Ableton, Logic, a lot of programming. Drum machines, synthesizers kind of stuff and it kinda went full EDM when the Skrillex era happened. Just straight up, it was like wow this is a completely new world. There's only so much you can do with a guitar. You can record it in different ways, you can put different distortion on it, but with EDM there are millions of synth options and drum machines and all these sounds. You can go anywhere with EDM, so that's kind of why I went 100% EDM in 2012. Skrillex was a huge influence in my career, speaking for myself.

iEDM: I know what you mean. Skrillex has had such a huge impact on the scene.

Americo: Yeah, Diplo too, Spencer & Hill, does anyone remember? Kaskade, huge influence. RL Grime, too. The festival trap era. And I was doing dubstep and moombahton on the side, I never considered it EDM. Being in Mexico, it's like reggaeton, a little sped up. I was seeing all these Mad Decent Block Party videos and I'm like "Wow."

iEDM: EDC is one of the biggest festivals in the world, how does it feel to play the stage here?

Americo: This is my first time playing EDC Vegas, EDC is hands down one of the greatest events ever. We've played EDC Mexico and EDC Orlando, huge shows and we're super happy to be here. But this is EDC Vegas you know? It's hundreds of thousands of people meeting in a desert because we all like the same stuff. And you don't need more than that. We're all coming together to have a good ass time.

iEDM: Exactly! It's over a hundred degrees outside, but everyone's here and partying.

Americo: Yeah, and like there's all sorts of genres around every stage. And there are all these artists walking around. There's so much creativity up in the air.

iEDM: Do you have any dream festival you would love to play at? Tomorrowland or Ultra or something?

Americo: Dream festival? Well, I'd love to do Coachella. I'd love to do Burning Man, I don't know, some festivals in South America. Some jungle stuff, some forest stuff, something different. Electric Forest.

Americo: Yeah, and going to music school in the Midwest, everyone talks about Electric Forest. We just started our EDM journey in the Midwest, in Minneapolis, and going to all these music festivals in the Midwest. But dream festival- EDC Vegas. Here we are. It's the one to go to.

iEDM: There are a hundred thousand people out there. Crazy things happen at festivals, what's the craziest thing you've ever seen at a festival?

Americo: One of the craziest things I've ever seen at a festival? Wow. I've seen crazy people dancing in ways that I didn't think a human body could move. I've seen people jumping really high, lying on the floor acting like a worm, people destroying rails at the front row, bending it and crushing it. So much crazy stuff happens, it depends on who's playing and at what stage.

iEDM: That's so true, you wouldn't see too many mosh pits at a trance stage.

Americo: Oh mosh pits. Crazy.

Thanks so much for taking the time out of your schedule to talk to us, Americo! We loved your set and it was so much fun getting to hear about the origins of Boombox Cartel and your musical inspirations. Stay up-to-date with all of Boombox Cartel's music on SoundCloud. Catch the entire EDC set if you didn't have a chance to party at bassPOD during EDC.

about the writer

Lindsey Moriyama

Read More...Lindsey was born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii but now she lives, writes, bartends and stretches paychecks in New York City.

Illenium, Gareth Emery and Porter Robinson are her favorites, but you'll find her at any EDM event in any borough. A lover of every genre from trance to dubstep, you can find her on the fringes of a crowd gloving, dancing and bringing good vibes. A PLURR fairy, basshead, trance child and kandi kid all in one, this scene is her world.